1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a vehicle lighting device and further relates to a vehicle lighting device in which a light emitting element is employed as a light source.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a vehicle lighting device of such type, it has been conventionally known that in a lamp room made of a housing and a front lens, there are provided a chip-shaped light emitting diode (a light emitting element) and a reflector that is disposed on a light emission surface side of the light emitting diode, the reflector being adapted to reflect light from the light emitting diode to the font lens side.
In this case, the light emitting diode is mounted on a heat sink, and a heat generated by turning on the light emitting diode is radiated to the heat sink so as to thereby prevent a change in characteristics which is exerted by the heat from the light emitting diode.
In addition, the heat sink is comparatively formed to be large in order to increase its heat dissipation effect, and is configured so that the light emitting diode is mounted on a plate-shaped portion that is protruded at a part of the heat sink. In other words, the heat sink is made of: a heat sink main body that is supported with respect to a housing; and a plate-shaped light source mount member which is protruded from the heat sink main body and on which the light emitting diode is to be disposed. It is to be noted that the light source mount member is disposed in parallel to a horizontal surface in a widthwise direction of a vehicle in a case where the vehicle lighting device is mounted on the vehicle.
A publicly known technique that is associated with the present invention can be found in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2010-86944 or the like, for example.
However, in the vehicle lighting device that is configured as described above, the light source mount member is a so called cantilever structure, so that it is structured to easily slacken with respect to acceleration in a direction from top face to back face thereof.
Therefore, in a case where the vehicle lighting device is mounted on a vehicle, vibration in a vertical direction of the vehicle easily resonates with the light source mount member, the light emitting diode that is mounted on the light source mount member also vibrates, and as a result, there has occurred an inconvenience that a distortion in optical distribution of the light from the light emitting diode easily occurs.
The present invention has been made in view of such a circumstance, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle lighting device that is structured in such a manner as to be able to restrain vibration of a light source mount member of a heat sink adapted to mount a light emitting element.